Curlews

On Tuesday (16 Jan) Morning I had to take my wife to the doctors for an appointment. As we reached the bottom of the hill to join the main road I spotted a couple of flocks of Curlew, totaling roughly 80-100 birds, in the fields on the other side of the main road. In the winter they quite often appear in these fields around high tide when the water level pushes them off the shore where they tend to feed. Sometimes the flocks seem to head over towards South Ronaldsay and on other times they come to Burray. I'm not sure what factors determine which way they go but suspect it maybe to do with the wind direction. As it has been dark when I've been passing these fields so far this year this is the first time I've seen them in daylight with the Curlew in them. So that's another species added to my Burray year list.

On the way back, coming up the hill to the cottage the field to the South of Ruemuera had a mixed flock of c30 Lapwings, c40 Starlings and six Blackbirds.

Back at the cottage the usual Blackbird was rummaging around the garden and three Greenfinches and three House Sparrows put in an appearance. The latter have been quite noticeable lately by their lack of appearance as usually I get good numbers of them.

Later morning saw the arrival of the snow and at first it didn't seem to be settling.

But after an hour the garden and surrounding area was starting to look quite white.

A Common Gull put in a brief appearance to investigate some apple that I had put out but Mrs Blackbird soon saw it off.